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I

One January day, thirty years ago, the little town of Hanover, anchored on a windy Nebraska tableland, was trying not to be bloay Aabout the cluster of low drab buildings huddled on the gray prairie, under a gray sky The dwelling-houses were set about haphazard on the tough prairie sod; soht, and others as if they were straying off by theht for the open plain None of the wind blew under them as well as over them The main street was a deeply rutted road, now frozen hard, which ran frorain "elevator" at the north end of the town to the lumber yard and the horse pond at the south end

On either side of this road straggled two uneven rows of wooden buildings; the generalstore, the feed store, the saloon, the post-office The board sidewalks were gray with trampled snow, but at two o'clock in the afternoon the shopkeepers, having co well behind their frosty s The children were all in school, and there was nobody abroad in the streets but a few rough-looking country caps pulled down to their noses Soht their wives to town, and now and then a red or a plaid shawl flashed out of one store into the shelter of another At the hitch-bars along the street a few heavy work-horses, harnessed to farons, shivered under their blankets About the station everything was quiet, for there would not be another train in until night

On the sidewalk in front of one of the stores sat a little Swede boy, crying bitterly He was about five years old His black cloth coat wasfor him and made him look like a little old man His shrunken brown flannel dress had been washedbetween the hem of his skirt and the tops of his clumsy, copper-toed shoes His cap was pulled down over his ears; his nose and his chubby cheeks were chapped and red with cold He cried quietly, and the few people who hurried by did not notice hio into the store and ask for help, so he sat wringing his long sleeves and looking up a telegraph pole beside hi, "My kitten, oh, my kitten! Her will fweeze!"